


father, this thick air is murderous

by minarchy



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Cyberpunk, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:43:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297917
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minarchy/pseuds/minarchy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is so obviously a bad idea, but Thor – crazy bastard, crazy stupid bastard who had personally installed his AI into his jack so that it was <i>inside his head</i> and talked to it like it was his brother – had insisted. The old STARKTECH base, he'd said; think of the glory that we'll find down there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	father, this thick air is murderous

**Author's Note:**

> also at my [livejournal](http://bella-epoche.livejournal.com/17801.html) archive.

"State your designation," Tony says, watching the AI carefully. Normally, he wouldn't need to bother with the correct command words, because AI would recognise nuances and inferences and the multiple reasonings behind words; but this one is old, rusting and ancient in a droid body older than he was. It has STARKTECH stamped across its chest, and it stinks of Howard.

"STEVE," the AI says, its voice clear and only slightly metallic, but the years of dissuse show in the creak behind the vocal processors.

"Define."

"I do not understand."

Tony sighs, and glares at the ceiling.

"Define your designation. Separate and expand the acronym."

The AI turns its head to look at Tony, visual sensors glowing blue in its long, blank face. Tony hates that they give them faces. "It does not have an expansion. It is my name."

"You are an AI," Tony says, "robotic intelligence in a mechanised body. You are not alive. You do not have a name."

"Howard gave it to me," the AI says, not once looking away from Tony, with nothing other than serenity in its tone – tinged, perhaps, with an edge of carefully programmed confusion. "He thought it would be good for me to have a name."

Tony's scowl draws furrows into his face because, yeah, that sounds like Howard. Build himself the perfect robot son, one that never whined or complained and came with its own 'off' switch, unlike his two real sons at home.

This is so obviously a bad idea, but Thor – crazy bastard, crazy stupid bastard who had personally installed his AI into his jack so that it was _inside his head_ and talked to it like it was his brother – had insisted. The old STARKTECH base, he'd said; think of the glory that we'll find down there (except that Thor speaks like he swallowed the entire works of Shakespeare at birth and never learned since to speak like a normal person – all extended clauses and obselete phrases). Thor can talk a cat into a sack – Tony's seen him do it – and Tony cannot deny that he'd been curious. Right up until they'd discovered an ancient, outdated AI locked up in cryostatic storage.

Whilst Thor had gone to find a terminal and let LOKI hack through the servers – even though Tony didn't doubt that most of them were cyberdust by now, degraded into single data fragments that could take months to piece into anything legible – Tony had taken the more direct approach, and rebooted the droid body. He is beginning to regret his decision, especially when the AI started talking about its designation being a 'name'.

(LOKI, as far as Tony could tell, was hardly a proper designation either; he hadn't asked Thor to define it, but he couldn't attach an expansion to it. But the AI was in Thor's head, and Thor's past remained glaringly unknown, even when Tony had risked jacking himself up to a terminal.)

"Where is Howard?" STEVE asks, blinking at Tony (why, _why_ did they give them faces?).

"Dead," Tony says.

"Dead?" STEVE repeats – and is that grief in its voice?

"Yeah," Tony says. "Three years ago. What's it to you?"

"He is – was – my friend. A good man. I shall miss him."

Tony is about to rage at the AI ( _you're a goddamned robot you don't have feelings you're just a machine you don't get to miss him he was my fucking father_ ) when LOKI's voice slides across the tannoy.

" _I think we should leave, Tony_ ," he says, his voice sibilant despite the tinny quality – and how had Thor managed to find an AI that is narcissistic? Tony is certain that LOKI works the output in order to create the tone, and also that he does it to piss Tony off. " _I appear to have inadvertantly tripped the firewalls; they say that they'll give you five minutes to get out before they flood the building with noxious gas._ "

"Inadvertantly, my ass," Tony grumbles, and points at STEVE. "I'm not done with you," he snaps. "Follow me."

" _I found something on your little science project_ ," LOKI says as they are running across walkways balanced precariously over long-dead machinery that stares at the ceiling with dead eyes as they pass. " _Although not much, because the system is mostly decayed now_ –"

"Like I fucking said," Tony grouses, but only because LOKI can't hear him.

"– _there was a few data streams that remain relatively undamaged, some of which are your father's notes, Tony. This is a section that is almost whole: O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills; For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding; For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;_ "

"Whitman," Tony muttered. "Fucking typical."

Thor is waiting for them on the surface.

"You must be STEVE!" he says, beaming at the AI. "I am Thor, and this is my brother LOKI."

His hair – ridiculously long, in Tony's opinion, but it conceals the scarring of his jack completely – whips around his face in the fetid, cityside wind. They need to keep cityside of the patrols, as well; STEVE will have a tracer. Tony turns to Thor – he trusts unknown AIs far more than Tony ever will.

"Can you deactivate his tracer?" he says. "And then we need to get the fuck out of here."

Thor nods, and steps around to hardwire into STEVE.

"You are cyborgs," STEVE says, when Thor disconnects. "Both of you. You're illegal."

"You are a military-grade AI android," Thor counters. "You should have been destroyed with the rest of your kind. Why were you hidden and kept, secret and safe away in this forgotten complex? What is so special about you?"

"Running now," Tony says, because he can see the searchlights probing the negative space between the city and the outlands, "talking later."

"Agreed," Thor says, "but I shall require satifaction in this matter. Where away?"

"Bruce's," Tony says, and drops into the trenches. His greatest worry about hanging out with Thor is that he'll accidentally end up talking like him. "We can leave this problem with him, for a change."

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Syliva Plath, [Full Fathom Five](http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1397):
> 
> Below shoulders not once  
> Seen by any man who kept his head,  
> You defy questions;
> 
> You defy godhood.  
> I walk dry on your kingdom's border  
> Exiled to no good.
> 
> Your shelled bed I remember.  
> Father, this thick air is murderous.  
> I would breathe water.
> 
> on my [livejournal](http://bella-epoche.livejournal.com/17801.html)


End file.
